REDCAT Presents Two Solo Exhibitions by Hande Sever and Abigail Raphael Collins

Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater will present two solo exhibitions by LA-based artists Hande Sever and Abigail Raphael Collins. Both artists examine the role of visual media in shaping our memories and imagining of global conflict.

Their work stands in conversation with each other, speaking to the acts of imperialism and militarization that expand into everyday culture. Hande Sever (Art MFA ‘18) explores cultural and political archives by excavating texts and images that shape historical narratives. Abigail Raphael Collins uses video installation and experimental nonfiction to listen to what is considered unspeakable.

Both exhibitions open at REDCAT on May 22 and will remain on view through August 10.

Hande Sever: Take off your eyes

Hande Sever (Art MFA ‘18) explores cultural and political archives by excavating texts and images that shape historical narratives. Often drawing from her own family's history of persecution, her work examines the intersection of personal and collective memory, particularly in the context of military violence, surveillance, and censorship. Take off your eyes presents two bodies of work rooted in Southern California collections. To Thread Air (2023) is based on research Sever conducted in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, and examines the relationship between the former actor and US President and Kenan Evren, former Turkish President and right-wing leader of the 1980 Turkish coup d'etat. Stemming from an album held in the Ottoman Empire photography collection of the Getty Research Institute, In Search of ‘My Beloved Pauline' (2025) follows the path of a German soldier who documented sites of colonization throughout and beyond the Ottoman Empire from 1917–1918.

Abigail Raphael Collins: BLACKOUT

Abigail Raphael Collins uses video installation and experimental nonfiction to listen to what is considered unspeakable. Her work begins from a queer, feminist perspective, exploring what is passed on through generations, outside of language: the gaps, silences, and stutters in intimate and historical dialogue. The culmination of seven years of researching, filming, and editing, BLACKOUT is an experimental documentary that unravels relationships between the film and television industry and the US military. Beginning with the artist's father, a method actor with PTSD frequently cast in military roles, BLACKOUT threads together interviews of individuals working at the mediatized military junction: a combat videographer, a role player for military trainings, a script supervisor in the Army, and a writer for a TV show partially funded by the US military.

Both exhibitions are co-curated by Daniela Lieja Quintanar, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, Programs and Talia Heiman, Assistant Curator.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Hande Sever is a writer and research-based artist from Istanbul, currently based in Los Angeles. Her work explores archives and the excavation of lost texts and distant images, focusing on how the production and dissemination of these materials shape historical narratives. Sever's work has been exhibited internationally at the Hauser & Wirth in Somerset; Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Vienna; Czong Institute for Contemporary Art in Seoul; Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City, among others. Sever's work has been supported by grants from the Félix González-Torres Foundation, California Arts Council, Eidolon Center for Everyday Photography, and the Hrant Dink Foundation. Website

Abigail Raphael Collins is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker born in New York and based in Los Angeles, CA. Collins was an adjunct faculty at School of Arts, California Institute for the Arts (2022–2024). Recent exhibitions and screenings have been at Union Docs, A.I.R Gallery, CAC Gallery, Johnson Museum of Art, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and Pasadena Armory. Collins is the recipient of a New York State Council for the Arts Award, CalArts Research & Practice Fellowship Program, FCA Emergency Grant, Toby Devan Lewis Fellowship, and UCIRA grant. She is a former resident at Seoul Art Space Geumcheon and Shandaken Projects. Collins received her MFA from UCLA in 2015 and BFA from Cooper Union in 2008.